


Maybe Now

by LeaderOfTheShadows



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Bi-Curious Dean Winchester, Castiel in the Bunker, Castiel is Missing, Castiel is Not Innocent, Castiel is Not Oblivious, Claustrophobic Dean, Closeted Dean, Destiel Day, Destiel Week, Established Castiel/Dean Winchester, Fluff, Gay Castiel, Grief/Mourning, Heavy Angst, John Winchester Bashing, John Winchester's A+ Parenting, M/M, POV Dean Winchester, Panic Attacks, Sam Winchester is a Little Shit, Sam Winchester's Bitchface, Season/Series 12 Spoilers, Season/Series 13 Spoilers, Second Chances
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-28
Updated: 2017-10-28
Packaged: 2019-01-25 13:03:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,157
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12532036
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LeaderOfTheShadows/pseuds/LeaderOfTheShadows
Summary: Reupload, had some issues before.Spoilers from latest episode (S13) as well as Season 12 Ending. M/M so if you don't like, don't read. Also, I had no beta so sorry about any potential mistakes, they are mine.Summary: Dean is broken in every sense of the word, because of the losses he and Sam suffered through, but losing Castiel is the one that strikes him the most. Though he abandons all hope, in the end, he might just get to see the angel again? What will he do? Happy ending, lots of angst.





	Maybe Now

# Maybe Enough

When did the car become a cage, Dean wasn’t sure. He loved Baby, but on his way back from the case, he just had to stop at a gas station. 

He pretended it was because he needed to buy snacks, but in fact he just had to get out of the car, because he felt like all that steel was suffocating him. Again. He couldn’t yet bring himself to tell Sam, how could he. But he was pretty sure he was regularly developing panic attacks now.

Missouri being dead didn’t help the case. Everyone was dead, and all he managed to accomplish was that Sam was alive. That was his duty, that was his mission he got from his dad when he was four, and he was never serious about anything else, but protecting his kid brother was his life. 

Until Cass died. He could take everything until then, but ever since then he wasn’t himself. He of course missed everyone they lost, and every parts of themselves they lost during the ride, but the last straw was Cass.

Dean was kind of selfish. After losing their mom so early, he figured it’s better not to hope for anything. He couldn’t really hope for a father after their mom’s death, and couldn’t help for Sam not acting as a spoiled child sometimes, because well.

He raised Sam to be selfish, and he was proud of that. Better raising a bit of a bitch brother than one who hasn’t been eating for weeks when their dad disappeared once again for a hunt.

Not that Dean could blame John. He was good at saving everyone else. Only himself and his family wasn’t that lucky. But it was okay. They had better days and worse days like everyone else.

Life went on. And Dean had learned from a young age that the world was dangerous, unfair and unforgiving. He could live by that. He didn’t let girls see the real part of him, and he didn’t let Sam see him either. He was a loner, and chicks even digged him for that. And sex was good.

Only, he never really told anyone that once, and only once, when he was out there hunting alone, because John deemed him capable and Sam was away for Standford, he fucked a guy too. And it was great. He couldn’t just tell John, and God forbid Sam knew. 

Dean himself had buried the memory, because if chicks didn’t disgust him, because he wasn’t “fully gay”, he wasn’t gonna out himself for nothing. It wasn’t worth the price. He couldn’t bear Sam judging him. Which he sure would. So while he tried to forget about the one time thing, it just grew harder on him.

And then there was that damned angel. Dean would have never let a chick get close to him like that. Not any mortal either. He kinda grew attached to Cass partially because Cass was immortal. Dean didn’t have to fear losing him like everyone else in this cruel world. At least he shouldn’t have.

And while Cass was incredibly funny in the beginning, and Dean sometimes even found himself mocking the angel, enjoying it better then he’d ever admit, Cass was always a powerful being and a hot man. One, who mind you, didn’t really know where personal boundaries lay, but only with Dean. 

Dean too - somewhere deep down inside, in the part of himself which was buried forever - enjoyed this attention. Cass would have been his boyfriend in a world where he could have had a childhood and could be gay. For this one, he was happy just to have Cass around.

There were though months, for example when he made Cass the mix-tape. He was channeling his mind always being on the angel that way. It was healthier than the drinking.

Not that he cared about death. He was always quite sure, that given his profession he’d die young and was ready for that. He even managed to push through some times when Sam died. Not with flying colors, but somehow, dragging himself forward inch by inch.

Cass dying on him just when Dean thought the angel was safe, going like this however… 

Dean was a no-bullshit guy who didn’t believe someone could go just mad because of emotional trauma, because you just go marching on, and toughen up, as John would say, but he felt himself almost going mad just by remembering Cass. The pain almost made him blind and made him lose his mind rather then letting himself feel what he had lost.

He didn’t dare to pray. For one, he didn’t believe he was worthy for having a list like the bad kids for Santa, but also, when he did pray, Chuck clearly wasn’t listening, but the angels found them because of it, probably. 

Well, he would beg if it would mean Cass would get to come back, but he also felt it’s not happening. Why? Because he realized he was in love with the angel and things did never go well for him in his life. Ever. He was Dean Winchester.

Then there was Jack. As far as Dean was concerned, the kid should have been put down even before birth. The “child” killed Mary, Cass, Crowley, Rowena and his own mother, even if not by his own hands. But he was the cause. 

Sam might seen himself in the nephilim, or just wanted to play father, but Dean had enough. He already had raised a child, and felt…too old for anything, really. Like he’d seen and lived too much, which was true in every sense.

He was cold all the time lately. It was as if Cass dying meant Dean was growing cold too, ready for dying soon after. 

However - despite Dean really hoping - he wasn’t really dying. It just felt like it. And there were the panic attacks in closed spaces. While driving too.

He wanted really to be able to pay attention to Sam, and forgive the Jack kid everything, but he just couldn’t. He had no energy left for that, when he could barely keep himself from just eating his own gun. 

Sam might not even have to know if Dean pretended to get angry, and leave, and the cops would only find a faceless corpse, who blew his brains out. 

Yes, the fingerprints might match for a deceased Dean Winchester, if they still had that record, but they wouldn't really pay mind to an already deceased person dying twice. They might just think it was an administrative mistake and move on.

As probably Sam would. Sad truth was on Dean’s part that his kid brother didn’t really need protection. If Dean wasn’t around, Sam could perfectly well function. Maybe even better, because then he wouldn’t wait for Dean to rescue him all the time and could be the bad-ass he really was all along.

So, not much for staying alive, was there? However, in this case, afterlife meant no good news. Dean wasn’t looking forward neither heaven nor hell after he ended himself. 

He just wanted to be gone and stay gone. No replay, no deals, no nothing. But no pain either. No self-hatred, no shame, no regrets. No must do tasks, no more killing or be killed, no more adrenalin pumping just to leave him empty as a shell after-wards.

That was his deepest, darkest wish. The Darkness partially was the representation of that, that’s why Dean ended up seeing her once when he was cursed. Only, then he had Cass. 

Not really, because they barely met those days, and it was hard, but then Dean Winchester was still living in a world where Cass too, somewhere lived. Not anymore though. And not even music helped.

Also, he was angry at Sam too. Why pester the boy of Satan? How could Sam even think about anything else then Cass just so soon after his death? How could Sam, still after all they have seen and fought, believe that Mary could be alive? What good would it do to them anyways? 

They were broken since forever, putting back of the pieces of their family didn’t mean that it would act as an adhesive as well. They remained to be broken, especially Mary, and as John, Dean couldn’t totally blame Mary either for everything, only himself.

How old was he now? Without Cass every day counted more, and now that the angel was fully gone, he felt like thousands of years of bad luck. 

He even ended up arguing with Sam and not in a flattering way, but he was so over everything he just went on with it, fully aware that the devil-child might as well hear them and kill them both. So be it. At least he’d be done protecting Sam, it was tiring as well.

Then… when the kid admitted that he bought back Cass, but don’t know where the angel is… Dean found himself doing research as only Sam did before. He wanted to get Cass back like no-one else. 

When they managed to find a ceremony and the naked Cass appeared in the middle of their living room full of runes, Dean didn’t even think about Sam anymore. Nor the comments John would have made, or his own self-hatred or ill-fated-Winchester-karma.

He just walked up to Cass, and embraced the angel tight, maybe a little too tight, because Cass did make a little bit of an unhappy noise, but the next was just to grab the angel by the neck and kiss him as if they were the last people on Earth.

“Incorrect, Dean, I’m not human,” Cass told him when Dean later told him how he felt. And Dean laughed at the comment. 

Cass was making less of them lately, learning the ropes of human life, but some still remained, and Dean was admiring them as rare birds when they occurred. Slightly being scared of scaring them away. Scaring Cass away.

However, as indifferent the angel looked, Cass still didn’t gave any sign of wanting to stop Dean either. He had his own pace, and that just made Dean love him more. 

Telling people about it was harder. And Sam did act all sorts of disappointed and avoidant and strangely, but Dean was no longer a conjoined twin with him that definitely benefited both of them on the long run.

“What are you thinking, Dean?” Cass asked, and appeared next to him in bed, and Dean smiled. He still loved how the angel pronounced his name, no matter how many times he heard it.

“Nothing. I’m simple like that.”

“You’re lying,” Cass realized and Dean felt proud. After all, he even managed to educate Cass on practical things like to catch liars.

“I was thinking about your manly, very much immortal-like body” Dean tried to distract Cass, if nothing else worked at least.

“Still not true, but go on” Cass reciprocated the small kissed Dean gave to him, and stopped pushing for the answer. 

He did learn about boundaries right after Dean and him didn’t have physical boundaries, after all. So he didn’t push, being considerate.

And although Dean couldn’t admit that he was thinking about the times when Cass was dead and Dean thought about following him to the grave, he did worship every part of his partner’s body with such care that the actions spoke louder than words. 

Needless to say, he didn’t have panic attacks anymore. In fact, Cass and him were solving cases now together. The angel liked rap so they listened to both rap and rock on the road.

Sometimes he even let Cass drive Baby, if he felt like sleeping, totally trusting the angel with his beloved car.

Also, since Sam moved out from the bunker to his girlfriend (also hunter), it was just theirs with Cass. A real home Dean always dreamed of.

Still, sometimes he worried all this was just a dream, that it was too good to be true, that it might go to tragedy any time he’d just turn on one corner. 

Cass might have felt the agony, or just as an accident, but always ended up comforting Dean right when he needed it. Chick-flick moments weren’t the same if they came right when he needed them, and ended soon, with him and Cass having sweet-sweet sex just after-wards.

It was life, and a better life Dean could ever have imagined for himself. He did pay serious prices along the way but he’d do it again in a blink of an eye. 

Going through all that made him getting here, and he wouldn’t trade for anyone else. Cass was his angel, his savior and… his husband, as of lately. 

Interestingly, instead of being ashamed of that, he wanted to tell the whole world. Haters be damned. And annoyed, hopefully. He and Cass could use the entertainment everywhere they went. Together.

_fin_

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: Tell me what you think! I wanna know! :)


End file.
